The Texas Republican Convention opened today, and Polimom’s unsurprised to learn that illegal immigration and border security are sizzling-hot topics (Houston Chronicle).
SAN ANTONIO – Irked by what he called federal “inaction” on border security, Gov. Rick Perry unveiled state plans to install hundreds of video surveillance cameras along the Rio Grande to allow anyone with Internet access to witness and report suspicious activity as it occurs.
[snip]
The video will be available on the Web in real time and cameras will have night vision capability. People who witness suspicious actions, including crossings, will be able to call a toll-free number to report it to the authorities.
Polimom thinks this is actually a pretty good idea. Not only does it potentially put more eyes on that border, it lets millions of folks get involved in an issue that’s tearing the country apart.
I do worry a bit about potential overload on the web-servers, but it’s a good trade-off if it’ll keep the militia-vigilante wannabes at home and out of the way.
Is it pandering? I don’t really see it that way… and what difference would it make, anyway? There’s so much of that going on these days, it’s really not worth commenting overmuch about. It’s certainly not a Republican-only tendency.
It’s the larger goal by the Texas GOP that is interesting (KSAT):
SAN ANTONIO — With a powerful denunciation of illegal immigration, Texas Republicans opened their state convention Friday and set their sights on maintaining political dominance this election year.
A tentative new platform for the Republican Party of Texas calls for building a “physical barrier” along the entire U.S.-Mexico border and urges the federal government to deploy agents to round up illegal immigrants and expedite their return to their original country.
“No amnesty! No how. No way,” states one platform plank. The full convention votes on the document Saturday.
Texas Republicans, via Perry’s re-election campaign, are drawing their lines in the sand, hoping their unhappy party members will forgive the school funding legislation and draw their wagons around that now-deeply-polarizing wedge issue, illegal immigration.
Polimom can’t see any reason they shouldn’t go ahead and do just that. Everybody else is.
And for those folks who are still “on the fence” (so to speak) about whether illegal immigrants are actually dangerous or not, Texas Homeland Security Director Steve McCraw has apparently started pushing the big red fear button as hard as he can, according to the Texas Politics blog:
Gov. Rick Perry’s homeland security director told reporters this morning that there is a “tsunami” of illegal immigration coming across the Texas border and many have to be suspected of al-Qaida ties.
“If you think of it as an army of jihadists coming into the country to do corporate style al-Qaida attacks, simultaneous attacks, everyone counts,” said Texas Homeland Security Director Steve McCraw
[snip]
“Not al-Qaida ties. Al-Qaida countries. I’m not going to take the links or associations of individuals back to terrorist groups or organizations in terms of those individuals were terrorist,” he said.
A tsunami!!! Armies of jihadists from al-Qaida countries!!!
Err…. wait… al-Qaida countries? WOW! That’s totally great news! That means we no longer have to fight some vague target like “terrorism”. We have real live countries now! Being able to just target whole countries will make things so much easier.
Of course, there’s always the possibility that the Director of Texas Homeland Security has missed a dose (or three) of his scheduled medication…
Glad this was only supposed to have been a wedge issue. Aren’t you?